ObsoleteThis feature is obsolete. Although it may still work in some browsers, its use is discouraged since it could be removed at any time. Try to avoid using it.

Non-standard
This feature is non-standard and is not on a standards track. Do not use it on production sites facing the Web: it will not work for every user. There may also be large incompatibilities between implementations and the behavior may change in the future.

The Internet Explorer only HTML Background Sound element (<bgsound>) sets up a sound file to play in the background while the page is used; use <audio> instead.

Do not use this!In order to embed audio in a Web page, you should be using the <audio> element.

Attributes

balance

This attribute defines a number between -10,000 and +10,000 that determines how the volume will be divided between the speakers.

loop

This attribute indicates the number of times a sound is to be played and either has a numeric value or the keyword infinite.

src

This attribute specifies the URL of the sound file to be played, which must be one of the following types: .wav, .au, or .mid.

volume

This attribute defines a number between -10,000 and 0 that determines the loudness of a page's background sound.

Example

<bgsound src="sound1.mid">
<bgsound src="sound2.au" loop="infinite">

Usage notes

Historically, the <embed> element could be used with audio player plug-ins to play audio in the background in most browsers. However, even this is no longer appropriate, and you should use <audio> instead, since it's more capable, more compatible, and doesn't require plug-ins.

You can write <bgsound> as a self-closing tag (<bgsound />); however, since this element is non-standard, doing so will still not validate.

Notes Up to Firefox 22, even if not supporting this element, Firefox was associating it with HTMLSpanElement. This was fixed then and now the associated element is an HTMLUnknownElement as required by the specification.

IEFull support
Yes

OperaNo support
No

SafariNo support
No

WebView AndroidNo support
No

Chrome AndroidNo support
No

Edge MobileNo support
No

Firefox AndroidNo support
No

Notes

No support
No

Notes

Notes Up to Firefox 22, even if not supporting this element, Firefox was associating it with HTMLSpanElement. This was fixed then and now the associated element is an HTMLUnknownElement as required by the specification.

Opera AndroidNo support
No

Safari iOSNo support
No

Samsung Internet AndroidNo support
No

Legend

Full support

Full support

No support

No support

Non-standard. Expect poor cross-browser support.

Non-standard. Expect poor cross-browser support.

Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.

Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.

See implementation notes.

See implementation notes.

See also

The <audio>, which is the standard element to embed audio in a document.